This paper investigates the relation between social capital and crime. The analysis contributes to explaining why crime is so heterogeneous across space. By employing current and historical data for Dutch municipalities and by providing novel indicators to measure social capital, we find a link...

This study develops and estimates a model of the naturalization process in the US. The model is based on both the characteristics of immigrants and features of their countries of origin. The empirical analysis is based on the 2000 US Census...

We study the dispersion in rates of provincial economic- and TFP growth in China. Our results show that regional growth patterns can be understood as a function of several interrelated factors, which include investment in physical capital, human capital, and infrastructure capital...

This paper provides an introduction and overview of my research on the Economics of Language. The approach is that language skills among immigrants and native-born linguistic minorities are a form of human capital. There are costs and benefits associated with this characteristic embodied in the...

This paper introduces a novel approach for dealing with the curse of dimensionality in thecase of large linear dynamic systems. Restrictions on the coefficients of an unrestricted VARare proposed that are binding only in a limit as the number of endogenous variables tends toinfinity...

We investigate the effects of works councils on employees’ wages and job satisfaction ingeneral and for subgroups with respect to sex and occupational status. Making use of aGerman representative sample of employees, we find that employees, who move to a firmwith a works council, report...

Based on a German representative sample of employees we explore the relevance anddevelopment of further training in private sector firms. We focus on formal training andexplore possible individual and job-based determinants of its incidence. We also showchanges over time during a 20 year...

This paper critically discusses the theoretical and empirical literature on the quantitative andqualitative employment impact of technological change, compares the relative explanatorypower of the competing theories, and explains in detail the macro and micro evidence on theissue, with reference...

The Tiananmen Square protests in 1989 and ensuing government crackdown affectedChinese nationals not only at home but around the world. The U.S. government responded tothe events in China by enacting multiple measures to protect Chinese nationals present inthe U.S. It first suspended all forced...

This paper develops the theoretical foundations and the testable implications of the variousmechanisms that have been proposed as possible triggers for the demographic transition.Moreover, it examines the empirical validity of each of the theories and their significance forthe understanding of...